So the time is nearly upon us as the Irish Tarmac Championship moves into a new era where WRC cars can no longer win the championship outright, although can still win the individual rounds. Time will tell whether it was a wise move or not but anticipation for the upcoming event has been building for a while now. Theres still a lot excitement about who turns up in what that in recent years has been missing from Galway as social media has become more popular.

Just how far off the pace of the WRCs will the R5s be is still up in the air. There will be many a red face in Motorsport Ireland of the R5s are blown out of the water, and a lot of back slapping if the R5s destroy the WRCs. I think we will see something in the middle. The quick R5 drivers will be well ahead of some of the WRCs by Sunday evening, but still behind the regular front runners in the ITC in their WRCs.

Stages are based around Portumna on Saturday with service in Portumna mart and Gort on the Sunday with service in the Mart.

Im going for Jennings for the overall win with Boyle second with Cronin taking full points in the ITC and a third place podium along the way. Anyone around taking pictures, would love a few of Cronins DS3R5. Im hoping someone will release an R5 1/18 at some stage to go with my DS3r3 I built of Keiths BRC win

Was over on saturday. It was great to feel the buzz and interest around again. The R5's look and sound great, they may not be top dog but I think that it will be very competitive season among them.Chatting to James in service he was saying the conditions were very poor and probably not great for the WRC cars. The 3 minute win might be greater when they hit dry tar.